مراتب الوجود
Cosmology: the degrees of existence
The frame the commentator sets before the board. “The intelligence of men needs, in order to grasp the truths, symbols and images.” Here is the map of the world in which the Chessboard takes on its meaning.
This page sums up the Prolegomena of al-Hāshimī's commentary (Michon edition, ARChè 1998). The board is not a string of words: it is the unfolding of a vision of the world. Without it, the hundred squares are only a list. With it, they become an itinerary. The Arabic terms are clickable.
العبد وأقسامه
The servant and his four categories
It all begins with a question: what is a servant (عبد, ʿabd)? The commentary distinguishes four kinds.
- The servant by existentiation — every creature, without exception, because it holds its being from God. “There is none in the heavens and the earth but comes to the Compassionate as a servant” (Quran, XIX, 94).
- The servant by the state of servanthood (العبودية, ʿubūdiyya) — the believer who obeys, accepts the decrees and does what God loves.
- The servant by bondage — accidental, social servitude, which excludes none of the others.
- The servant of the world and the passions — the one who loves the here-below (الدنيا, dunyā) and lets himself be led by the nafs: “the loser, the one who walks toward the abysses of his own misfortune.”
The board is the stage where these four figures contend for one and the same heart.
الملك والملكوت والجبروت
The three worlds
The traveller progresses through three degrees of reality, which tradition makes correspond to the three foundations of religion.
الملك
al-mulk
The Kingdom
The sensible, manifest world, perceived by the instruments of the body. It corresponds to islām (إسلام), submission, and to the state of humanity (الناسوت, nāsūt).
الملكوت
al-malakūt
The Dominion
The subtle world of spirits and angels, secret of the ideas. It corresponds to īmān (إيمان), faith, and to the state of divinity (اللاهوت, lāhūt).
الجبروت
al-jabarūt
The Immensity
The Presence of the mystery (الغيب, ghayb), source of all things, where the names and qualities are enfolded. It corresponds to iḥsān (إحسان), excellence.
“The place is one; it is the gaze that changes according to the knowledge attained.” To rise from one to another is not to change place, but to see the same light closer to its source.
المنازل السبع
The seven planes of existence
The soul crosses seven dwellings (منازل, manāzil), from before birth to the hereafter. The author gathered them in verse.
- The day of the Covenant — “Am I not your Lord?” (ألست بربكم)
- The plane of the wombs (الأرحام, al-arḥām)
- The here-below (الدنيا, al-dunyā)
- The intermediate isthmus (البرزخ, al-barzakh)
- The gathering (الحشر, al-ḥashr) — the Judgement
- Paradise or hell
- The heaping-up (الكثيب, al-kathīb) — the vision of God
مراتب الوجود
How many degrees? A matter of gaze
The masters have counted the degrees of existence differently, and the commentary makes clear: all these opinions are true, they do not contradict one another. “The numbering of the stations is a function of men.”
- 3 — mulk, malakūt, jabarūt
- 7 — the seven planes, or the seven “veils”
- 40 — the degrees of al-Jīlī (عبد الكريم الجيلي), from “pure Essence” to the White Heaping-up, for the ميم (mīm) is worth forty, “the measure of the Lord”
- 100 — the hundred dwellings of al-Anṣārī (below); and the hundred squares of the Chessboard
- 1000, 70,000, 100,000 — according to the fineness of the soul; “to others, the Truth makes them cross the stages in a single step”
منازل السائرين
The mirror of al-Anṣārī: the hundred dwellings of the wayfarer
The commentary explicitly cites the hundred stations of the Shaykh al-Islām ʿAbd Allāh al-Anṣārī al-Harawī (d. 481/1088), arranged in ten classes of ten in his منازل السائرين (Manāzil al-sāʾirīn, “The Dwellings of the Wayfarers”). One capital difference is set out: with al-Anṣārī, the traveller chooses to climb his stages; on the Chessboard, the passage is “far more constrained” (إجباري, ijbārī) than freely chosen. Two maps of the same path: one of effort, the other of destiny.
1 · The beginnings البدايات
Awakening, repentance, self-examination, return, reflection, remembrance, refuge, flight to God, discipline, spiritual audition.
2 · The doors الأبواب
Sorrow, fear (khawf), self-pity, humility, effacement, asceticism, scruple, exclusive service, hope, awaiting the divine favours.
3 · The transactions المعاملات
Observance, vigilance, sacred respect, sincerity (ikhlāṣ), self-amendment, rectitude, surrender (tawakkul), handing over to God, trust, submission.
4 · The virtues الأخلاق
Patience, contentment (riḍā), gratitude, modesty, truthfulness, altruism, good nature, humility, magnanimity, kindliness.
5 · The sources الأصول
Intent, resolve, will, good manners (adab), certainty (yaqīn), intimacy, remembrance (dhikr), poverty (faqr), spiritual wealth, the station of the willed-by-God.
6 · The remedies الأودية
Perfect virtue, knowledge (ʿilm), wisdom, clear-sightedness, intuition, glorification, inspiration, deep peace, serenity, high aspiration.
7 · The states الأحوال
Love (maḥabba), holy jealousy, ardent longing, disquiet, thirst, ecstasy, stupor, wandering, lightning, taste (dhawq).
8 · The principalities الولايات
The glance, the instant (waqt), purity, secret joy, the inmost (sirr), the breath, estrangement, submersion, occultation, establishment.
9 · The realities الحقائق
Unveiling, contemplation, essential vision, life, contraction (qabḍ), expansion (basṭ), intoxication (sukr), lucidity, union, separation.
10 · The ultimate ends النهايات
Gnosis (maʿrifa), extinction (fanāʾ), realisation, confusion, existence, detachment, isolation, integration, Unity (tawḥīd).
⚠️ Honesty: this list is the one al-Hāshimī's commentary itself enumerates. A square-by-square correspondence with the board would require the critical edition of the Manāzil (de Beaurecueil) — it is therefore not attempted here, so as to invent nothing.